Apple has just launched two new phones. The more expensive and faster 5S and the new cheaper plastic 5C. Here are the first look specifications for the 5S (5C coming soon).
iPhone 5S Specifications
New Colours
The iPhone 5S will come in new colours; silver, space grey and gold
8 Mega Pixel Camera
Apple claims to have made big strides with the iPhone camera, despite deliberately not focusing on increasing the number of pixels. Apple claims that the bigger pixels take better pictures.
Tim Cook said ‘We think deeply about the experience we want to create’
It has a brand new sensor with an aperture of f/2.2. The sensor is also 15% larger which should help it to perform better in low light. Like the Samsung S4 the new iPhone camera now features a burst mode which takes up 10 shots per second. The video camera can now take slow motion video at 120fps in 720p.
Perhaps the biggest hardware feature of the camera is a new ‘True Tone’ dual LED flash. This should make a big difference to the cameras performance in low light. Until now the small bright flashes on all smartphone have always taken poor quality images. We’ll have to wait and see if Apples prove to be true.
Fingerprint Sensor
The fingerprint sensor has been integrated into the Apple home button. The sensor can apparently read your finger from any direction. It can be used to unlock the phone but also as an authentication when making a purchase from the app store. It has also been speculated that app developers will create new applications which will take advantage of the feature, although fingerprint data is encyrpted and will be stored inside the phone and won’t be to iCloud or Apple’s servers.
A7 Chip
Apple claims its new chip is the first 64bit chip in a smartphone. Apple claims the new chip will run much faster than previous phones, perhaps even twice as fast. It should be much better at playing more powerful games as Apple demonstrated. It has been fully optimised to run with iOS 7. Apple’s new operating system.
M7 Chip
The new M7 chip continuously measures motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass which should make it possible to develop a range of new apps, especially health and fitness apps which have become very popular recently. This technology may also point to a future Apple smartwatch.
Battery Life
Battery life is improved. It has 250 hours of standby, 10 hours of browsing on LTE, and 10 hours of talk on 3G. This might actually be the most useful of all the 5S’s features as many previous smartphones struggle to last for a day.
iOS 7
The new iPhone 5S will come with Apples brand new operating system iOS 7. Apple already showed off iOS 7 during the summer (It will be possible to download on the 18th September). iOS 7 is Apples biggest software overhaul for a long time. The user interface has been completely redesigned by Johnny Ive. The new operating system is packed with loads of new features. One of the biggest is Apples new radio service which will compete with Spotify and Pandora. Apple should hopefully improve on its heavily criticised map application. It will probably be the software optimised with the new hardware which will be the main reason to buy this phone.
Price
The iPhone 5S will start at $199 for the 16GB model on a two-year contract, 32GB at $299 and 64GB at $399.